Press Clips Week 32-2015

A Superconducting Shield for Astronauts

The CERN Superconductors team in the Technology department is involved in the European Space Radiation Superconducting Shield (SR2S) project, which aims to demonstrate the feasibility of using superconducting magnetic shielding technology to protect astronauts from cosmic radiation in the space environment. The material that will be used in the superconductor coils on which the project is working is magnesium diboride (MgB2), the same type of conductor developed in the form of wire for CERN for the LHC High Luminosity Cold Powering project. Back in April 2014, the CERN Superconductors team announced a world-record current in an electrical transmission line using cables made of the MgB2superconductor. This result proved that the technology could be used in the form of wire and could be a viable solution for both electrical transmission for accelerator technology and long-distance power transportation. Now, the MgB2superconductor has found another application: it will soon be tested in a prototype coil that could provide the solution to ensure safe trips for astronauts during deep-space missions. The idea is to create an active magnetic field to shield the spacecraft from high-energy cosmic particles. “In the framework of this project, CERN is testing MgB2 tape in a configuration that has specifically been developed for the SR2S project by Columbus Superconductors,” explains Amalia Ballarino, Superconductors and Superconducting Devices section leader. “In the framework of the project, we will test, in the coming months, a racetrack coil wound with an MgB2 superconducting tape,” says Bernardo Bordini, coordinator of CERN activity in the framework of the SR2S project. “The prototype coil is designed to quantify the effectiveness of the superconducting magnetic shielding technology.” During long-duration trips in space and in the absence of the magnetosphere that protects people living on Earth, astronauts are bombarded with high-energy cosmic rays that might cause a significant increase in the probability of various types of cancers. Because of this, exploration missions to Mars or other distant destinations will only become realistically possible if an effective solution for adequately shielding astronauts is found. “If the prototype coil we will be testing produces successful results, we will have contributed important information to the feasibility of the superconducting magnetic shield,” says Ballarino. There are many more challenges to overcome before a spacecraft shield can be built: various possible magnetic configurations need to be tested and compared and other key enabling technologies need to be developed. But the MgB2 superconductor seems to be very well-placed to take part in this challenging adventure as, among its many advantages, there is also its ability to operate at higher temperatures (up to about 25 K) thus allowing the spacecraft to have a simplified cryogenic system. Watch this “space”!

For the First Time Chinese Research to Fly on NASA’s Space Station

A Houston company has negotiated a historic agreement to fly a Chinese experiment on the International Space Station, a small but symbolic maneuver around a law that bans any scientific cooperation between NASA and the communist country. Over a conference table adorned with an American and a Chinese flag, Jeff Manber last week agreed to take a DNA experiment into space next year. Manber’s Houston-based company, NanoRacks, helps scientists do research on board the station. Because of decades of suspicion about Chinese motives and the country’s regime, Congress prohibits NASA from working with the country in any capacity. But the new deal, which is apparently legal, could begin to change that. “It’s symbolic, and it’s meaningful,” Manber said Monday, after returning from Beijing. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Chinese scientists from the Beijing Institute of Technology, led by Professor Deng Yulin, will pay about $200,000 to NanoRacks for its services. This includes delivery of the experiment to the American side of the station in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and a berth in NanoRacks’ orbiting laboratory facilities. In turn the company will send data back to the Chinese researchers. Congress’ prohibition was crafted in 2011 as an amendment by then U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf to block any scientific activity between the United States and China that involves NASA. He was concerned about the Chinese stealing U.S. spaceflight secrets, and about the country’s human rights record.

ULA’s Swiss Supplier To Build Rocket Parts in Alabama

Swiss rocket-component builder RUAG is opening a production line at customer United Launch Alliance’s Alabama facility to replace capacity in Switzerland used to build parts for ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket and to prepare for ULA’s new Vulcan vehicle, ULA and RUAG announced. Zurich-based RUAG said the move is a result of a strategic partnership with Centennial, Colorado-based ULA that will satisfy a long-standing RUAG ambition to tap into the U.S. market for government launches. Final assembly of an Ariane 5 payload fairing at RUAG Space in Emmen, Switzerland. Credit: RUAG Space “We have been looking to expand our market presence in the U.S. for years,” RUAG said in an Aug. 4 statement in response to SpaceNews queries. “However, it has always been a chicken-and-egg problem. To establish a facility in the U.S., you need enough work, which is not so easy to get if you have no footprint in the U.S. The strategic partnership includes not only our current work for Atlas, but also contributions to the Vulcan. It is a big step for us.”

NASA: Tracking CubeSats is Easy, But Many Stay in Orbit Too Long

U.S. military radars have little trouble tracking the flux of CubeSats filling orbital traffic lanes, diminishing worries that new commercial CubeSat constellations could generate collision hazards in space, according to a report issued by NASA last week. But 46 of the 231 CubeSats successfully launched from 2000 through the end of 2014 — about one in five — will remain in orbit more than a quarter-century. Space debris experts and most big international satellite operators have agreed to re-position spacecraft in low Earth orbit at low enough altitudes to naturally re-enter the atmosphere within 25 years at the end of their lives. Most CubeSats range between the size of a Rubik’s cube and a shoebox, and all of the small satellites based on the CubeSat design have been tracked and catalogued by the U.S. military’s Joint Space Operations Center, according to a report issued July 22 by NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office. Launches of large clusters of CubeSats in recent years, along with industry plans to deploy hundreds more, have raised concerns about the tiny satellites contributing to the orbital debris problem in low Earth orbit. U.S. Air Force officials say the military tracks approximately 23,000 objects in space, most of which are derelict rocket stages, decommissioned spacecraft, or smaller fragments. CubeSats are a small fraction of the objects orbiting Earth, but unlike older pieces of space junk, the pace of deployment of future CubeSats is expected to increase. CubeSats launched inside pressurized cargo vessels and released outside the International Space Station are of little concern to space debris experts. The space station orbits at an altitude of about 260 miles, or 420 kilometers, where aerodynamic drag from the outer wisps of Earth’s atmosphere often brings CubeSats down within months. For CubeSats sent to higher altitudes, the orbital lifetime is much longer, and most are not equipped with rocket thrusters to move out of the way of other satellites or lower their orbits at end-of-life. The altitude cutoff for a 25-year lifetime is between 600 and 700 kilometers (373 to 435 miles), according to NASA’s orbital debris report. “At higher altitudes, all CubeSats display longer on-orbit lifetimes and non-compliant residence times,” NASA officials wrote. “Lower altitude deployments, such as those from the ISS, are projected to be compliant.” CubeSat operators who may prefer low-altitude orbits often find themselves at the mercy of larger satellite owners, such as government agencies. That is because nearly all CubeSats ride into space aboard powerful rockets as secondary passengers, meaning they must go to the same orbital destination as the primary payload. In some cases, the only option for a CubeSat owner is to launch into a higher orbit outside the bounds of the 25-year lifetime rule.

NASA Names New Manager of International Space Station Program

NASA’s springboard for discovery, innovation and deep space exploration has a new chief. The agency has named Kirk Shireman as the new manager of its International Space Station (ISS) Program, based at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where Shireman has served as deputy center director since 2013. “Kirk brings considerable space station experience to this new leadership role. He will manage the overall development, integration and operation of the program,” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate in Washington. “As program manager, Kirk will work directly with international partners to ensure safe and reliable operation of the orbiting laboratory, and foster continued scientific research that benefits humanity and helps prepare the agency for its journey to Mars.”Shireman served as deputy ISS program manager from 2006 to 2013, just prior to stepping into the position of deputy center director. He also served as the chair of the ISS Mission Management Team after managing several of its subsystem offices, and managed multiple offices for NASA’s Space Shuttle Program. He earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Texas A&M University in College Station and began his career with NASA in 1985. NASA has recognized Shireman with the agency’s Exceptional Achievement Medal, Silver Snoopy award in 1990 and Presidential Rank Award in 2010. In 2013, the National Space Club awarded Shireman its Eagle Manned Mission Award for his outstanding leadership of the International Space Station.Shireman succeeds Michael Suffredini, who is leaving the agency to take a position in private industry.

Orion Service Module Still Seen as Schedule Driver

The pace of the European Space Agency’s development of a power and propulsion module for NASA’s Orion crew capsule will likely determine when an unpiloted test flight of the spaceship and its heavy-lift rocket will take off, NASA officials said last week. The first flight of NASA’s Space Launch System is currently penciled in some time between July and September 2018, according to Bill Hill, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development. “We’re a little more than three years away,” Hill told members of the NASA Advisory Council’s human exploration subcommittee July 28. The mission will send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft into lunar orbit for a mission lasting more than 20 days. The capsule will return to Earth for a parachute-assisted ocean splashdown in a final shakedown before NASA adds final life support systems and crew accommodations for a manned flight around 2021. NASA working on the deep space exploration rocket and capsule programs under a budget projected at approximately $3 billion per year. Bill Gerstenmaier, head of NASA’s human spaceflight directorate, told members of the subcommittee the Orion capsule’s European-made service module, which is being developed by Airbus Defense and Space, will probably be the last piece of the critical test flight to be ready for launch. NASA and ESA officials, together with contractors from Orion-builder Lockheed Martin and Airbus, have discussed shipping the Orion service module from Europe to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida before it is finished. European engineers could travel to the Florida spaceport to complete construction of the service module before its integration with the Orion crew capsule, which is to be assembled by Lockheed Martin at KSC’s Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building.

CRS-7 Investigation Update

On June 28, 2015, following a nominal liftoff, Falcon 9 experienced an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank approximately 139 seconds into flight, resulting in loss of mission. This summary represents an initial assessment, but further investigation may reveal more over time. Prior to the mishap, the first stage of the vehicle, including all nine Merlin 1D engines, operated nominally; the first stage actually continued to power through the overpressure event on the second stage for several seconds following the mishap. In addition, the Dragon spacecraft not only survived the second stage event, but also continued to communicate until the vehicle dropped below the horizon and out of range. SpaceX has led the investigation efforts with oversight from the FAA and participation from NASA and the U.S. Air Force. Review of the flight data proved challenging both because of the volume of data —over 3,000 telemetry channels as well as video and physical debris—and because the key events happened very quickly. From the first indication of an issue to loss of all telemetry was just 0.893 seconds. Over the last few weeks, engineering teams have spent thousands of hours going through the painstaking process of matching up data across rocket systems down to the millisecond to understand that final 0.893 seconds prior to loss of telemetry. At this time, the investigation remains ongoing, as SpaceX and the investigation team continue analyzing significant amounts of data and conducting additional testing that must be completed in order to fully validate these conclusions. However, given the currently available data, we believe we have identified a potential cause. Preliminary analysis suggests the overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank was initiated by a flawed piece of support hardware (a “strut”) inside the second stage. Several hundred struts fly on every Falcon 9 vehicle, with a cumulative flight history of several thousand. The strut that we believe failed was designed and material certified to handle 10,000 lbs of force, but failed at 2,000 lbs, a five-fold difference. Detailed close-out photos of stage construction show no visible flaws or damage of any kind. In the case of the CRS-7 mission, it appears that one of these supporting pieces inside the second stage failed approximately 138 seconds into flight. The pressurization system itself was performing nominally, but with the failure of this strut, the helium system integrity was breached. This caused a high pressure event inside the second stage within less than one second and the stage was no longer able to maintain its structural integrity. Despite the fact that these struts have been used on all previous Falcon 9 flights and are certified to withstand well beyond the expected loads during flight, SpaceX will no longer use these particular struts for flight applications. In addition, SpaceX will implement additional hardware quality audits throughout the vehicle to further ensure all parts received perform as expected per their certification documentation. As noted above, these conclusions are preliminary. Our investigation is ongoing until we exonerate all other aspects of the vehicle, but at this time, we expect to return to flight this fall and fly all the customers we intended to fly in 2015 by end of year.

NASA Deploys New System to Avoid Traffic Jams at Mars

Five active spacecraft are now orbiting the Red Planet, including one from India, leaving NASA with no option but to beef up traffic monitoring, communication and manoeuvre planning to ensure that Mars orbiters do not collide with one another. The newly-enhanced collision-avoidance system from the US space agency accurately warns if two orbiters approach each other too closely. NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) and India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan) joined the 2003 Mars Express from ESA (the European Space Agency) and two from NASA — the 2001 Mars Odyssey and the 2006 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Currently, all the five active Mars orbiters use the communication and tracking services of NASA’s Deep Space Network. This brings trajectory information together and engineers can run computer projections of future trajectories out to a few weeks ahead for comparisons. The newly-enhanced collision-avoidance process also tracks the approximate location of the NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor, a 1997 orbiter that is no longer working. “Previously, collision avoidance was coordinated between the Odyssey and MRO navigation teams. There was a less possibility of an issue,” Robert Shotwell, Mars Programme chief engineer at the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said in a statement. “MAVEN’s highly elliptical orbit, crossing the altitudes of other orbits, changes the probability that someone will need to do a collision-avoidance manoeuvre. We track all the orbiters much more closely now.” MAVEN, which reached Mars on September 21, 2014, studies the upper atmosphere. It flies on an elongated orbit, sometimes farther from Mars than NASA’s other orbiters and sometimes closer to Mars, so it crosses altitudes occupied by those orbiters. For safety, NASA also monitors positions of ESA’s and India’s orbiters which both fly along elongated orbits. Traffic management at Mars is much less complex than in the Earth orbit, where more than 1,000 active orbiters plus additional pieces of inactive hardware add to hazards. As Mars exploration intensifies, precautions are increasing. The new process was established to manage this growth as new members are added to the Mars orbital community in years to come. “It is a monitoring function to anticipate when traffic will get heavy,” said Joseph Guinn, manager of JPL’s mission design and navigation section. When two spacecraft are predicted to come too close to one another, “we give people a heads-up in advance so the project teams can start coordinating about whether any manoeuvres are needed,” he informed. The new formal collision-avoidance process for Mars is part of NASA’s Multi-Mission Automated Deep-Space Conjunction Assessment Process.

A titan now resides at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. This titan is no Greek god, but one of the largest composites manufacturing robots created in America, and it will help NASA build the biggest, lightweight composite parts ever made for space vehicles. “Marshall has been investing in composites for a long time,” said Preston Jones, deputy director of Marshall’s Engineering Directorate. “This addition to Marshall’s Composites Technology Center provides modern technology to develop low-cost and high-speed manufacturing processes for making large composite rocket structures. We will build and test these structures to determine if they are a good fit for space vehicles that will carry humans on exploration missions to Mars and other places.” It takes a myriad of different materials to build a space vehicle like NASA’s new Space Launch System, a heavy-lift rocket designed to take explorers on deep space missions. The lighter the rocket, the more payload–crew, science instruments, food, equipment, and habitats–the rocket can carry to space. Lightweight composites have the potential to increase the amount of payload that can be carried by a rocket along with lowering its total production cost. NASA is conducting composites manufacturing technology development and demonstration projects to determine whether composites can be part of the evolved Space Launch System and other exploration spacecraft, such as landers, rovers, and habitats. “The robot will build structures larger than 8 meters, or 26 feet, in diameter, some of the largest composite structures ever constructed for space vehicles, “said Justin Jackson, the Marshall materials engineer who installed and checked out the robot and who helped build and test one of the largest composite rocket fuel tanks ever made. “Composite manufacturing has advanced tremendously in the last few years, and NASA is using this industrial automated fiber placement tool in new ways to advance space exploration. Marshall’s investment in this robot will help mature composites manufacturing technology that may lead to more affordable space vehicles.” The robot travelled across the country from Electroimpact, Inc., in Mukitteo, Washington. Electroimpact engineers worked with Marshall engineers to customize the robot and supporting software for building large space structures. The robot is mounted on a 40-foot-long track in Marshall’s Composites Technology Center that is part of NASA’s National Center for Advanced Manufacturing. This center already has support infrastructure necessary for composite manufacturing: large autoclaves, curing chambers, test facilities, and digital analysis systems. To make large composite structures, the robot travels on a track, and a head at the end of its 21-foot robot arm articulates in multiple directions. The head can hold up to 16 spools of carbon fibers that look like pieces of tape and are as thin as human hairs. The robot places the fibers onto a tooling surface in precise patterns to form different large structures of varying shapes and sizes. In what looks like an elaborate dance, the tooling surface holds the piece on a rotisserie-like system on a parallel track next to the robot. The robot head can be changed for different projects, which makes the system flexible and usable for various types of manufacturing. The first project that the robot will tackle is making large composite structures for a Technology Demonstration Mission (TDM) program managed by Marshall for the Space Technology Mission Directorate. For the project, engineers will design, build, test and address flight certification of large composite structures similar to those that might be infused into upgrades for an evolved Space Launch System.

Trouble in Orbit: The Growing Problem of Space Junk

Forty-five years ago the associate director of science at Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Ernst Stuhlinger, an original member of Wernher von Braun’s Operation Paperclip team, was asked by Sister Mary Jucunda, a Zambia-based nun, how he could suggest spending billions of dollars on spaceflight when many children were starving on Earth. Today, Stuhlinger’s response still provides a powerful justification for the costs associated with space research. “It is certainly not by accident that we begin to see the tremendous tasks waiting for us at a time when the young space age has provided us the first good look at our own planet,” he said. “Very fortunately though, the space age not only holds out a mirror in which we can see ourselves, it also provides us with the technologies, the challenge, the motivation, and even with the optimism to attack these tasks with confidence.” In the intervening years, the maturing space infrastructure has supported our new and ongoing efforts to tackle global health, hunger, poverty, education, disaster risk reduction, energy security and climate change. Indeed, we have made great use of Stuhlinger’s “mirror” to meet many of society’s biggest challenges. Sadly, the space environment has borne the brunt of our increasing reliance on satellites and our long-lived belief that “space is big”. More than 5,000 launches since the start of the space age, each carrying satellites for Earth observation, or communications, for example, have resulted in space becoming increasingly congested and contested. Now, the US Space Surveillance Network is tracking tens of thousands of objects larger than a tennis ball orbiting above us, and we suspect that there are one hundred million objects larger than 1mm in the environment. Due to their enormous orbital speed (17,000 mph), each one of these objects carries with it the potential to damage or destroy the satellites that we now depend on. Perhaps the most visible symptoms of the space junk problem are the regular collision avoidance manoeuvres being performed by the International Space Station (ISS), and the increasingly frequent and alarming need for its occupants to “shelter-in-place” when a piece of junk is detected too late for a manoeuvre. The systems on the ISS that provide vital life support are also responsible for its unique vulnerability to a debris impact – a pressurised module in a vacuum might behave like a balloon if punctured. The recent “red conjunction” (where a piece of debris comes close enough to pose a threat to the space station) involving a fragment from a Russian satellite on 17 July this year was yet another demonstration of the growing threat from space junk.

The Battle Above

The following is a script from “The Battle Above” which aired on April 26, 2015, and was rebroadcast on August 2, 2015. David Martin is the correspondent. Andy Court, producer.

Without most of us noticing, our everyday activities — everything from getting cash at an ATM to watching this program — depend on satellites in space. And for the U.S. military, it’s not just everyday activities. The way it fights depends on space. Satellites are used to communicate with troops, gather intelligence, fly drones and target weapons. But as we reported earlier this year, top military and intelligence leaders are now worried those satellites are vulnerable to attack. They say China, in particular, has been actively testing anti-satellite weapons that could, in effect, knock out America’s eyes and ears. No one wants a war in space, but it’s the job of a branch of the Air Force called Space Command to prepare for one. If you’ve never heard of Space Command, it’s because most of what it does happens hundreds even thousands of miles above the Earth or deep inside highly secure command centers. You may be as surprised as we were to find out how the high-stakes game for control of space is played. The research being done at the Starfire Optical Range in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was kept secret for many years and for a good reason which only becomes apparent at night. First, the roof of one building is opened to the stars then the walls retract and an object straight out of Star Wars appears shooting a laser into the sky. The laser’s beam helps a high-powered telescope focus in on objects in space, so the Air Force can get a better look at the satellites of potential adversaries like China whizzing by at 17,000 miles per hour. It’s part of a complex — and mostly secret — battle for what the military considers the ultimate high ground. Gen. John Hyten: There is no such thing as a day without space. That’s the mantra of General John Hyten, the head of Air Force Space Command. Gen. John Hyten: Think of what life used to be like and all the things that we have today in warfare that wouldn’t exist without space. Remotely piloted aircraft, all-weather precision guided munitions didn’t exist before space. Now we can attack any target on the planet, anytime, anywhere, in any weather. David Martin: What would the U.S. military do without space? Gen. John Hyten: What happens is you go back to World War II. You go back to industrial age warfare. David Martin: And your job is to make sure there is no day without space. Gen. John Hyten: Absolutely. [Gen. John Hyten addressing his troops: And you should be thinking right from the beginning that this is a contested environment and…] Hyten drills into his troops that U.S. satellites are no longer safe from attack. Eleven countries, including Iran and North Korea, now have the ability to launch objects into orbit. And Russia and China have been testing new anti-satellite technologies. Gen. John Hyten: It’s a competition that I wish wasn’t occurring, but it is. And if we’re threatened in space, we have the right of self-defense, and we’ll make sure we can execute that right. David Martin: And use force if necessary. Gen. John Hyten: That’s why we have a military. You know, I’m not NASA.

A Space War With China or Russia Is a Real Threat

A war in space sounds like a great plot for a summer blockbuster. Unfortunately, a conflict in space isn’t just a Hollywood movie script anymore, but a threat in the real world. Both Russia and China have developed, or are developing, the ability to shoot satellites out of space. In addition to this, a number of other countries are developing ways to harm satellites from the ground using jammers and lasers. Lieutenant General John Raymond, who is in charge of U.S. military space operations, told Congress earlier this year that the Chinese have tested anti-satellite weapons twice in the past two years and that the Russians have a previously undeclared microsatellite in space, which some believe to be a space weapon. America’s potential adversaries are developing these capabilities because they’ve realized how incredibly vital space is, as a tool, for the U.S. armed forces and intelligence agencies. Satellite communications allow our troops to be able to operate anywhere in the world, and can range from simple text messages, to nuclear command and control. GPS is able to provide precise location and timing for cruise missile launches, as well as enable close air support to troops on the front line. Intelligence and surveillance satellites provide imagery and technical intelligence including missile warnings. This week, The New York Times editorial page discussed preventing a war in space. Regrettably, their proposal is predictable and not particularly helpful (calling for more diplomacy). In “Preventing a Space War,” the argument is made for developing some sort of international treaty. This op-ed rightly notes, that China and Russia have proposed a legally binding ban on space weapons. These proposals come, however, as both are developing weapons that could be used in a space conflict. Despite China and Russia’s space weapon development, some in the State Department seem to be interested in pursuing a space arms control treaty. Diplomacy always plays a role in preventing conflicts, but with the actions of the Chinese and the Russians, the U.S. must now focus on deterrence and defense—in addition to continued diplomatic pressure. The United States must be able to protect its vital space systems, which many Americans depend on for everyday life. Diplomacy alone is unlikely to prevent an attack on U.S. space assets and will only make the United States more vulnerable. If deterrence fails, the U.S. must be able to restore its space capabilities—and preserve a strong military option to stop the threat. The U.S. must make it clear that an attack on American satellites will be treated the same as an attack on other American equipment such as ships, planes, or bases. There must be no doubt in the minds of our potential adversaries on our commitment to respond to an attack in space to U.S. property. The United States can strengthen deterrence in space by taking steps to complicate potential adversarial attacks. The president and military must have a full awareness of what is happening in space, along with an ability to rapidly reposition our satellites, if needed, to avoid threats. The U.S. should also consider providing defensive capabilities to its critical satellites. Diplomacy alone is not a sufficient response to the rising threats in space. If China or Russia believe that they can win a war in space, treaties will do little to prevent their continued investment in space weapons.In order to maintain peace in space the United States must project strength through deterrence, while continuing its use of diplomacy.